Mastering the school setting step by step

Working ESY? Seeing private clients this summer? Extra hours in the clinic? Make your sessions a little sweeter…with a lemonade stand!
My 7 year old daughter just finished first grade and was so excited to set up her own lemonade stand in our neighborhood. She was planning out all the details, creating signs, and making lists of all the items she needed.

Then we took a trip to Target just in case the Dollar Spot had any cute additions. Which of course they did! And she isn’t even the one who pointed them all out to me, begging me to buy them. I saw them and excitedly showed them to her (picture)…

and once again I spent way more than I planned to when I walked into Target that day.

I convinced myself it would be worth it…I mean I’m an SLP. We can make a therapy activity out of pretty much any supply, right?! Then my creative juices were flowing and I thought, “What a great spring or summer therapy activity!”
So, I sat down at my computer and got to work on this new TpT product

The product includes activities to work on various speech and language skills including:
*articulation (initial /l/ pictures and sight words included plus editable ‘lemons’ to add your own images/target sounds)
*story comprehension (download the preview here for a free sample)
*problem solving
*conversational skills
*vocabulary skills of describing and same/different
**plus a list of books to help you expand the theme
But I think the part that will be the most fun is setting up a lemonade stand with the students – let them help you plan it all out, decorate signs, make the lemonade, decide the best day/time/location to have the stand…

the kids won’t even know how much they are learning!

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Once upon a time there was a 4-year old girl who had a dream. She told her daddy all about it and they turned it into a story; daughter dictated the words and daddy drew the pictures. The story became a published children’s book and they lived happily ever after.
This is not a fairytale, though! My niece is the author and my brother is the illustrator of a children’s book titled The Great Marshmallow Adventure. It was published and released when my niece was just 5 years old (she’s now going on 12) and was based on a dream she had at age 4! Quite an accomplishment for a little girl, huh?!
It is the most adorable story of Leah’s adventure one night when her bed turns into a giant marshmallow and takes her on a ride through her neighborhood, which has also turned into delicious treats!
The text is simple, the story is exciting, and it is full of speech and language targets! Perfectly suited for students in grade K-3, easily adaptable for 3 and 4-year olds or 4th and 5th graders. Incorporate into a fall or camping theme or use any time of year!
I have been waiting to be able to use this book as part of therapy lessons. Now that I am back “in the classroom” working directly with students, I had to create some companion activities to use with it.
So, I thought I would share what I came up with – which you can download as a FREEBIE here on TpT.
The book, unfortunately, is not so easy to find these days. It’s not as easy as one may think to get a book published and available to the masses! But, I can help with that! I worked some magic with the author and illustrator (it’s all who you know, am I right?!) and if you like what you see in the free download and would like to purchase this book for your personal library, send Elissa an email at livingthespeechlife@gmail.com and we will make it happen! I mean every little penny (aka royalty) helps when you’re a middle school tween!

There are comprehension questions to use before, during and after reading the story, three pictured Tier 2 vocabulary targets, pictures and sentences for sequencing and retelling, articulation pictures with words from the story (r, l, s-blends), and pictures to target the irregular past tense verbs included in the text.
And I cannot wait to read this book as the mystery reader in my daughter’s first grade classroom – complete with a bag of all the ingredients and a recipe card for Indoor S’mores (also included in the download)!
So, click this link and download the FREEBIE – you really have nothing to lose, right?! Did I mention it is FREE!
Be sure to email me (Elissa) if you are interested in more information about this sweet book (pun intended).

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There has been a lot of discussion among school-based SLPs on Facebook about bulletin boards. Decorative, useful, storage, teaching tool…there are so many options. As I embarked on my first year back in a school after 11 years, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. In my opinion, simple (and functional) is always better; plus I knew I wanted something that could stay there all year long. So, I started the year with my one small board decorated simply with a calendar and Target Dollar Spot finds to talk about yesterday, today and tomorrow. But in the back of my mind I knew that wasn’t how it would stay.
The group of SLPs at my school soon found out that we would need to come up with a professional learning goal as part of our annual evaluation. After some brief discussion, we all decided that we wanted to teach our students about the Zones of Regulation ®. So, I purchased some great tools on TpT to help me with this task and decided I would decorate the wall space outside my room with some teaching tools for all speech students as they enter the room as well as any students/classes walking by (many of whom are in our self-contained Autism classes or visit the nearby sensory room on a daily basis).

As I thought about how I would put this together and make it interactive, I realized that this would also make a great bulletin board INSIDE my room.
So, here’s how I made it work, the products I used, and how I plan to implement it:

This Zones of Regulation Visual (FREE!) from Inspired in Speech relates the zones to characters from the movie Inside Out in a simple one-page visual. This is displayed outside my room to help teach the emotions that go with each zone. Since most of the students are already familiar with the characters, they already know one of the emotions for each zone!

These cute posters from Creatively Themed also match the Inside Out characters to one of the Zones. You can find one for green, red, yellow, and blue, and each one is FREE! Without any instruction at all, my speech students are already talking about what zone they are in during sessions (or pretending to be in the red zone just for fun)!
This Feelings freebie from Special Ed Teachers Classroom is a great addition to the interactive bulletin board inside my room. I have it hooked up there with one thumbtack so I can easily remove it and the students can use dry erase markers to complete it (or they can dictate for me to complete it). I can also pull it up on the iPad or display on the whiteboard via computer/projector to work on as a group (I don’t have an interactive whiteboard in my room but this could be a great way to use it as well).
To add to all these amazing freebies, I couldn’t resist this Interactive Zones package from Sunshine on a Cloudy Day. It is full of great resources and all for only $5.00. I have 2 of the Toolbox nameplates inside my room. I placed the tools on a small ring and hung it on the bulletin board so we can ‘get back to green’ whenever we need to during a session. My board also includes the “Knowing My Triggers?” graphic organizer and a daily visual schedule card (that can be easily removed) with a miniature clothespin so the students can mark their zone. I also have 2 copies of the “What Zone Are You In?” reference cards – just another teaching tool to use as needed with my students. I’ll probably make some more to have on hand for any interested teachers/staff.

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Outside, I also have 2 of the toolbox nameplates just in case a staff member is walking by with a student and needs to borrow it. I used Velcro to stick the tools on a printed picture of a toolbox (downloaded from Pixabay) so any student who is not ‘ready to learn’ in the green zone can choose a tool as they walk by or into my room and place it on one of the nameplates. There is also a daily visual schedule card with a clothespin.

Both inside and outside, I have also included my favorite part – to teach students how to match their reaction to the size of their problem. This resource includes an amazing, interactive “How Big Is The Problem” poster and teaching tool.

Of course, there are technological tools that can assist in teaching my students about the Zones of Regulation ®.
There are two apps that teach and reinforce the concepts of the Zones®. Multiple students can be added to go through the sections on their own or we can do it as a group.
A quick search on YouTube turns up plenty of videos and teaching tools to sort through, deciding which are most appropriate for the age group and cognitive level you are targeting.
More resources and free downloads are available from Zones of Regulation ® so be sure to check out that amazing site.
I’m so excited to get started on these lessons – some will be planned and some have already happened by chance just by the students seeing the pictures and posters and asking questions.
I love the concepts behind Zones of Regulation ® and Size of The Problem. It seems students these days are having more trouble with self-regulation at earlier ages. I’m hoping what we SLPs put into place in our rooms and outside our classroom doors will catch on with teachers and become a school-wide positive behavior program!
How do you implement these concepts in your room?

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Not those highlights!!

I’m talking about those magazines!

In a previous post, we talked about using Highlights® Magazine in speech therapy. That post focused more on the use of Highlights® High Five™ for ages 2-6. Now that we have aged up in our house, we are accumulating copies of the next level for ages 6-12. So additional discussion seemed in order as summer passes quickly and we are all thinking up creative ideas for the upcoming school year.

The fun starts right inside the front cover with “Fun This Month”…

A “Mystery Photo” lends itself to descriptive terms and distinctive features of common objects (e.g., baseball, banana)

Use the “Tongue Twister” for articulation practice, or extra fun!

Follow some instructions and complete a craft

Work on paying attention to detail, identifying pictures or describing as you “Find the Pictures” within the magazine.

Target additional skills such as matching or finding hidden objects

Discuss “ways to” do various things such as “4 ways to celebrate trees” (April, 2017) or “5 ways to cheer up a friend” (August, 2017). Students can even work on additional skills while writing a poem about their favorite tree or writing a letter about why a friend is special.

Whew! That page may last half the month!

Maybe we should dive into the rest of the magazine…

Each issue has a short poem (sometimes rhyming, sometimes not) which includes great descriptive language and pictures to match. Address vocabulary skills and comprehension with these little gems!

Need conversation starters for those social skill groups? “Brain Play” has some great ones.

Working on listening and reading comprehension skills? Every issue has both fiction short stories and informational text to get the job done!

“My Sci” shows up each month with a scientific topic sure to intrigue a student or two…

And that’s the end! I can’t wait to create month-long lessons for my new students this school year. I’m all about using one resource to target multiple goals and these magazines will certainly do the trick!

What one-resource activities do you like to use in therapy?

Make sure you follow our TpT store as we continue adding plans and resources to target multiple goals at one time!

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One of my (Elissa) favorite quotes by Agnes de Mille could not be more fitting in my life right now…

“No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.”

I recently completed my 16th year as a SLP – all in the same school system; first hired by my now friend and co-blogger, Lydia. After 5 years working in elementary schools and working on some special projects with Lydia through the Georgia DOE, she approached me to apply for the position of Lead SLP for the school district. This was not a role I ever saw myself in – not something I ever really strived for.

I was content in my school, happy to serve my students, be a member of the school’s leadership team, mentor new SLPs and supervise interns…that was enough for me. Or so I thought…

It took a lot of convincing by multiple people but I went for this lead job and got it. One year later, Lydia moved on from her role as coordinator (and my boss) but I was getting the hang of things, enjoying the challenges. Someone I barely knew took over Lydia’s role and 10 years later we made a dynamic duo! I still worked with Lydia, we wrote a book, started a blog and TpT store. I got married and had a daughter, moved to the ‘burbs and continued as the lead SLP for this constantly growing and changing large metro school district. My boss of the last 10 years has been AMAZING and our partnership and working relationship helped make the Communication Disorders department very well respected in the district and metro area. I loved my job, loved supporting over 175 SLPs, developing programs and professional development, supervising SLP-Assistants, and helping staff through some difficult assessments and meetings. I even stopped missing the day-to-day therapy – I still kept my skills very sharp with all of the troubleshooting and model lessons; and I still wrote and conducted plenty of IEPs and evaluations. So why would I ever consider leaving?

Did I mention the traveling…and the traffic? Some days I was in the car for 3 hours or more driving back and forth from my house (in a different county) to various parts of this district. The closest school to my house took 30 minutes (without traffic) and the drive to my office (in the middle of the county) took at least an hour most of the time. And like every working mother, I struggled with the work-life balance. “Daddy has to take you to the bus stop today sweetie, I have a meeting… We’ll try to do a gymnastics class next year honey…or We can’t do soccer and dance right now”.

The pro/con lists started a couple years ago, the idea of being on the same schedule as my daughter, so close to home I couldn’t even imagine…the seed was planted in my head and just kept blooming. My boss and I knew it would happen someday…but it was so hard to admit that the day had finally come.

And then everything started falling into place…interviews at multiple schools, an offer I could have totally lived with and then the call I never expected. An interview at my daughter’s school – for a full-time SLP position. A great interview and an offer on the spot. Is it even possible to say no? Well, no it is not…

So this year I said goodbye to a team that will never be replaced, to a job I never imagined taking and then never wanted to leave, and to a boss, mentor and friend that helped make me the SLP and leader I am today. It is bittersweet to say the least!

Why do I share all this? Sometimes a personal story can empower us all to be our best selves. Sometimes it can help us remember why we do what we do everyday and the things that are most important to us. I’m going back to my roots as an elementary-school SLP. I’ll get back into those classrooms and work side by side with the teachers. I’ll plan good lessons and bad lessons, my best IEPs and my worst. I’ll meet new friends and colleagues and have students who melt my heart. And I’ll miss my former colleagues, friends, and students everyday. I’ll miss the training and supervising, the problem solving and program development…but I’ll find a new niche in this new adventure

Sometimes we have to make tough decisions – as humans, as parents, as professionals. Change is hard but can also be for the best. Next week this change becomes reality. So here we go…

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Wouldn’t it be nice if you could work with your students and not worry about collecting data? How great would it be if we could just do therapy all day, teach discrete skills and strategies, with no worries about the dreaded data! Unfortunately, data is very important and must be collected.

How many times do you stop after the student’s response to record the data?

How often do you keep data and not let the students see what you are writing? Most of the time, they know you are writing down how they did. Why not just let them see it? Better yet, have you ever let them keep their own data?

No matter the age or exceptionality, students can do it. We have had success with students keeping their own data as young as kindergarten and as low as Mildly Intellectually Disabled; but we are sure younger or lower functioning students may also have some success.

Are you wondering how?

Provide each student with a data sheet set up in blocks of ten (like this product, free for a limited time). Have the student put a + (plus) for correct and a 0 (zero) for incorrect responses – or whatever code you and the student decide on. We have found that students understand a zero much better than a minus By having the data sheet set up in blocks of 10, you can easily figure out the % at a glance.

Let’s think about a student working on articulation… After each sound/word/sentence you can talk with the student about the production and help them determine which code they should enter.

Of course this does not just have to be utilized with articulation. It works just as well with language skills!

At the end of the session the information can be transferred to a bar graph completed by the student. Our students love this part. They get to choose their own color and have a visual representation of how they performed. You can discuss how they did from session to session – did they improve or have the same level of success? Or maybe they were having an ‘off’ day. Think of all the additional language (and math) concepts you can include in this conversation – more/less, higher/lower, same/different!

Just be sure that you talk about each students’ graphs and performance in comparison to themselves – it is not a contest among students as they each work at their own pace and are at varying levels on a variety of skills!

The students really enjoy keeping their own data. And of course they are motivated to get as many plus signs and as high a graph as possible! It also provides that great visual of how they are doing with their goals – they can even bring a copy home to their parents.

Since so many of our students don’t experience enough language and story reading on a daily basis, we love using books in therapy and bet you do too! And we also know you most likely have some mixed groups on your schedule. So, we are creating Literacy-based Lesson Plan Assistants for some favorite short stories. These will help you target a variety of skills including articulation, receptive and expressive language and social language. Check out our blog post where we provide some additional information on these. And make sure you check out the FREEBIE for Frog on a Log? by Kes Gray on our TpT store. Additional titles will continue to be added!

Does the thought of writing an evaluation report make you reach for another bottle of wine? We’ve got you covered on that one too! Check out our test descriptions. Using information from individual test manuals, we have created a way for you to easily explain what the standardized speech-language test assesses and what the examinee is expected to do on each subtest. But it goes a little further than that! Use these downloads to help you document how each skill impacts educational performance. The CELF-5, OWLS-II, and Listening Comprehension Test (for elementary age and adolescents) are already available and more are on the way!

There are a currently a couple other FREEBIES for CF supervision and co-teaching. Keep checking back for additional product including FREEBIES, sales, and bundles!